For those who weren’t sure whether or not Coulter meant what she wrote in her initial tweet, Coulter had some follow-up remarks. “Maybe it’s (sic) to suck up to Evangelicals?” and after Governor Christie’s pro-Israel statement, Coulter tweeted: “Christie also talks @ Israel in response to the question, ‘What will AMERICA look like after you are President?'” followed by: “How to get applause from GOP donors: 1) Pledge to start a war 2) Talk about job creators 3) Denounce abortion 4) Cite Reagan 5) Cite Israel.”
Ann Coulter’s remarks were immediately condemned by Christians United for Israel, the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League. Spokesman for CUI Ari Morgenstern said in a news release: “Ann Coulter’s tweets this evening concerning Israel were completely inappropriate. The US—Israel relationship is both a moral and strategic imperative. There are tens of millions of Christians in America who stand with the Jewish State.” The Zionist Organization of America called on Fox News to dismiss Ann Coulter, who transformed what seemed to be a legitimate point of emphasis—that President Obama’s Iran deal has harmed the US/Israel relationship—into an accusation that GOP candidates are merely pandering to the Jews. The ZOA said that criticizing the Iran deal also strengthened America’s as well as Israel’s interests. The letter continued, “Ann Coulter is known for making harsh, sweeping statements, but I wonder, would she have ever dared spoken of [expletive] blacks or [expletive] Hispanics? I doubt it. This shows it is becoming permissible to say anything about Jews … Ann Coulter was gratuitously offensive and anti-Jewish in her remarks.” The ZOA said either Coulter should apologize or be dismissed from FoxNews.
Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Coulter’s tweets were “hyperbolic and hateful. Ms. Coulter is pandering to the basest of her base. Her messages challenging candidate’s support for Israel were offensive, ugly, spiteful and borderline anti-Semitic. Her tweets give fodder to those who buy into anti-Semitic notions that Jews control the US government, wield disproportionate power in politics and are more loyal to Israel than their own country.” One may wonder, given how strongly worded the rest of Greenblatt’s statement was, why he said her actual tweet was only “borderline” anti-Semitic? The ADL statement seemed careful to concentrate on the possible effect the tweets would have, without probing the motives of the tweeter or the views she may hold. Saying outright that the Ann Coulter statement was anti-Semitic rather than “borderline” anti-Semitic might have been too risky a step to take, just in case Coulter’s career might survive this tweet.
Someone in Tehran agrees with Ann Coulter that the Jews were mentioned too often in the GOP debates. Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini, tweeted, commenting on the GOP candidates’ debate, “US govs put their people under Zionists custody. Isn’t it a shame that presidential candidates try to satisfy Zionists & prove their servitude.” Ann Coulter might not agree, however, with Khameini’s next tweet, or at least not with the second half: “The Zionist regime is an imposed regime made through coercion; no entity made by coercion will last. This regime will not survive either.” Freudian slip?
It wasn’t an apology that Coulter offered, but instead, criticism of those who took her tweets and “ripped [them] out of context, chopped up and sent out tweets with inflammatory headings,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. She disregarded the fact that, before her tweets could have been manhandled by the media, her bare, straight forward message evoked outrage from so many. Coulter implies that the real context is, of course, Coulter’s own résumé on Israel, which should have caused people to understand she really meant that the GOP candidates should have focused more on immigration. Coulter said the tweets were being used as fodder by “mostly Israel-hating liberals and pro mass-immigration Republicans. Both of whom don’t want anyone to notice how immigration is changing the country, putting America—and Israel—at risk.” She added, “The GOP wastes half of these debates on issues on which there is already 100% agreement… The GOP is Pro-Israel. I’m Pro-Israel.” Coulter said she also tweeted that pro-life issues and Ronald Reagan, in addition to Israel, were being mentioned too often in those debates, “I like Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. I don’t need to hear applause about them all night.” One wonders why, if Coulter wanted to hear more about immigration and less about fetuses, Reagan and Jews, she didn’t tweet just that point, rather than to make an offensive comment about what shouldn’t be discussed (i.e. Israel and the Jews). Still though, Coulter defended herself against the charge of anti-Semitism by citing points she seemed to feel were obvious. “Anyone with a pulse knows I’m pro-Israel and against the enemies of the Jewish People.” She adds that she has an entire chapter on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in one of her books.
